Biologically speaking, humans are not designed for happiness, writes Rafael Euba on The Conversation. Depression is a natural part of life, fostering problem-solving skills and keeping us out of dangerous situations.
Humans are not designed to be happy, or even content. Instead, we are designed primarily to survive and reproduce, like every other creature in the natural world. A state of contentment is discouraged by nature because it would lower our guard against possible threats to our survival.
In fact, some say it is dangerous to try to be happy all the time. It is better to allow yourself to feel all the emotions. Being happy is great but it is not the appropriate response to all situations. If someone you care about dies, you can't expect to respond in happiness.
We all like to have these positive feelings. Besides feeling good, positive emotions do good things for our brains and bodies. They lower stress hormones, help ease anxiety and depression, and improve our immune system. Feeling some positive emotions every day has a big effect on our happiness and well-being.
It is the Dalai Lama who tells us I believe that the very purpose of life is to be happy and Aristotle who said Happiness is the meaning and the purpose of life, the whole aim and end of human existence.
American philosopher and poet Ralph Waldo Emerson was right when he said, “The purpose of life is not to be happy. It is to be useful, to be honorable, to be compassionate, to have it make some difference that you have lived and lived well.”
According to Aristotle, happiness is the goal of human existence because it is an end in itself. Even through virtue a person can find happiness. Whatever humans do they do for happiness as a means to happiness.
As humans, we are engineered for many challenges. One of the challenges that we are not well equipped for, however, is loneliness. The Covid-19 period of on and off lockdowns, restrictions, and social isolation have made it abundantly clear that we are not meant to be alone.
The brain and nervous system require the attunement and attentiveness of others to assist in development and emotional self-regulation. Humans rely subconsciously on significant others for security, safety and love in order to thrive and have good mental health.
Sadness is one of the seven universal emotions experienced by everyone around the world resulting from the loss of someone or something important.
In one large study from the Brookings Institute, for example, scientists found happiness was high for 18- to 21-year-olds and then dropped steadily until about age 40. But past middle age, the pattern began to reverse—gradually climbing back up to its highest point at age 98!
The human brain, therefore, is not designed to be generally happy. Steven C. Hayes, who interestingly is the founder of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, wrote recently for Psychology Today the article, “Why You Focus on the Wrong Things.” In it he describes five ways our brains evolved to focus on negative.
On a scale of 1 to 3, where 1 represents “not too happy” and 3 means “very happy,” Americans on average give themselves a 2.18 — just a hair above “pretty happy.” That's a significant decline from the nation's peak happiness, as measured by the survey, of the early 1990s.
Happiness is an illusion because a cloudy image of your desire can never really materialize. For most being happy is a transient state that is often overshadowed by the next big thing. A lot of people claim they will be happy once they get a promotion, or get married, or finally go on that dream vacation.
It's not a straight line. There are ups and downs that you will experience all throughout life but whether you are happy or not is all about your feelings. Just by virtue of the fact that you're a human being and you can experience feelings, happiness being one of them, you know that true happiness does exist.
We Do It For the Likes
Being liked is actually a fundamental human need, according to Roger Covin, Ph. D., a clinical psychologist.
As humans, we're hardwired to want acceptance. While most people can accept that not everyone will like them, others can't and have a need to be liked by everyone. If you have that need, there might be an underlying reason driving it such as past trauma or anxiety.
All of us have an intense desire to be loved and nurtured. The need to be loved, as experiments by Bowlby and others have shown, could be considered one of our most basic and fundamental needs. One of the forms that this need takes is contact comfort—the desire to be held and touched.
Hawkley points to evidence linking perceived social isolation with adverse health consequences including depression, poor sleep quality, impaired executive function, accelerated cognitive decline, poor cardiovascular function and impaired immunity at every stage of life.
During respiration, nitrogen and oxygen are converted into highly reactive molecules that initiate a series of biochemical changes that lead to your death. The generation of reactive oxygen and nitrogen species is an inevitable consequence of life.
Loneliness raises levels of stress hormones and blood pressure. It undermines regulation of the circulatory system so that the heart muscle works harder and the blood vessels are subject to damage by blood flow turbulence.
The ultimate goal of human life is to strive for perfection. Bliss body is nothing but a state of perfection i.e. when one realizes that I am one with the universe.
All life forms have one essential purpose: survival. This is even more important than reproduction.
Our purpose is to "evolve" during our lifetime because that is consistent with our evolutionary purpose. Thus, an answer to The Ultimate Question of "What is the purpose of life?" is that we are here so that we can continue to live, adapt, learn, and grow. A purpose of life, and our purpose, is to continue to evolve.
Happiness is U-shaped – it declines and bottoms out in your 40s, so report countless studies, until it starts to inch its way up again in the 50s. This is a remarkably consistent finding, across countries and cultures.